Learning to Like Myself Again: How My Relationship with Myself Has Changed Over the Years

There was a time when I didn’t know how to like myself. Mostly because I never understood who I truly was. I would always picture myself as someone else. Someone confident, talkative, and more capable. Because inside, I felt small and had no clue how to decipher my emotions.

I always felt off, like I was constantly falling short. Socially. Emotionally. Professionally. I’m extremely sensitive, somewhat spacey, and the poster child for the “quiet” girl. So, felt like I was inept. Not productive enough, not fast enough, and not the easiest person to understand.

I learned to mold myself into what others needed me to be. I’d mask my discomfort, my confusion, and even my personality. I was the master at pretending everything was fine, when clearly it wasn’t. I was an emotional wreck inside, and the longer I did it, the more disconnected I became from who I was underneath it all.

Diagnosis Wasn’t the End—It Was the Beginning

Getting my diagnoses later in life changed everything for me. It didn’t happen overnight though. There was a lot of back-and-forth emotions for me. But ultimately, it was like a light being turned on in a long forgotten dark room.

Suddenly, there were reasons for the things I’d hated myself for. The forgetfulness. The brain fog. The emotional extremes. The overstimulation. The shutdowns. The way I’d disappear into daydreams just to cope. They weren’t moral failures. They weren’t character flaws. They were real, they had names, and they weren’t my fault.

From Criticism to Compassion

It wasn’t easy to shift how I treated myself. I’d spent decades internalizing that I was a problem to fix. That I had to earn love, rest, and peace by being good enough or useful enough.

But slowly, therapy, self-reflection, new experiences, and writing helped me being to extend gentleness to the parts of me I used to shame.

I started noticing how hard I was trying. How much I carried. And how much I cared, even when my brain made things harder than they needed to be.

I Still Have Bad Days

There are days where I slip back into old patterns—self-blame, overthinking, comparison. Days where my brain feels like static. Days where the fog is thick and I don’t know where I went.

But now, I know what’s happening. I don’t label myself a failure. I don’t abandon myself anymore. I might be starting over from scratch, but I’m discovering parts of myself that I didn’t know existed.

Becoming My Own Safe Place

My relationship with myself is getting better each day. I’m continually growing, and I think I’m headed in a more positive direction. I’m not trying to be easy to understand, but I’m trying to be real.

I may not always love myself, but I have a newfound respect for myself now. And that’s definitely not something I could say a few years ago.